


Steppin' Out

by tawg



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Capsicoul - Freeform, Capsicoul Day, High School AU, M/M, additional background characters, additional background pairings, background buckynat, misunderstanding trope, pre-serum steve, so many high school romcom-esque tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-17 23:51:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil offered to take Steve to the school dance and Steve agreed. That doesn’t mean it’s a date.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steppin' Out

Steve frowned at the sign for the school dance. The design was nice enough, he’d gone for an art deco kind of look with a repeated pattern of yellows and greys in the background (painstakingly measured out in one tile and then traced over and over onto butcher’s paper using his light box, and _then_ transferred onto the yellow card for the grey to be painted in) with the details written out in blocky black letters and silhouettes of dancing shoes in each corner. Bucky had conveniently pointed out that Steve could have done the whole things in twenty minutes on a computer, but Steve liked doing his art the long way. The poster had been photocopied numerous times and the original was tucked neatly away into his portfolio. All that remained was hanging the dratted things, and Steve just couldn’t get the poster straight.

It didn’t help that Steve had to climb up onto a milk crate to shift the top of the poster. He was yet to hit his second growth spurt. Or fill out. Or acquire facial hair that needed shaving more than once a week. Bucky told him not to stress it. Dr Erskine, one of Steve’s favourite teachers, often told Steve that brawn was overrated. Steve would happily compromise for a little more height and a little less asthma, but as his foster dad Col. Phillips liked to say, “If wishes were horses there’d be horse shit all over the floor”. 

“Nice poster,” a voice behind him said. Steve looked over his shoulder and saw Phil Coulson looking appreciatively at the design.

“It’s not straight,” Steve replied, frowning at the uneven sit of the poster on the wall.

Phil leaned past him a hiked up one corner with his thumb, then stepped back and looked at the poster with a small smile. “Thanks,” Steve said gruffly, and then picked up his milk crate and carried it a few feet along the hall.

“You going to the dance then?” Phil asked, ambling along behind Steve. 

With his leather satchel bag, his button up shirts and sweater vests doing nothing to hide the muscle of his arms or the leanness of his torso, with his glassed with their thick black frames hooked by one arm onto the front of his shirt, Phil was very much the picture of a handsome academic. Steve was Chess Club and hiding out in the art room and doing anything to avoid crossing paths with the football team. Phil was Dance Club and Debate Club and learning a new language each summer. He’d often asked Steve to join the Comic Book Club, despite being less interested in reading comics and more interested in making them. Steve did drop in occasionally, mainly because the group had a standing policy to walk one another home and there was safety in numbers.

Phil was a nice guy, but he got along with everybody and in contrast Steve was a little on the cantankerous side. They were cut from different cloth, and Steve never knew quite what to do with the warm affection that Phil seemed to share so easily.

“Nope,” he said flatly.

“Really?” Phil asked, sounding disappointed. “I was hoping to see you there.”

Steve shrugged, climbed up onto his crate, and set about tacking up the next poster. “Usually I go with Bucky,” he said. “But Natasha asked him to be her date for this one. Not much point going if I’m just going to stand in a corner and leave early.”

“Would you like to go to the dance with me then?” Phil asked. 

Steve leaned back on his crate and tried to pick whether the poster was hanging straight. “You don’t have to hang out with me,” Steve replied absently as he shifted the poster one way and then the other.

“I want to,” Phil said. “It’ll be fun.”

Steve looked over his shoulder at Phil and raised a skeptical eyebrow. It was strange being able to look down on Phil, who was usually a good few inches taller than Steve. Phil looked up at Steve with a patient expression, though his cheeks were a little pink. Belatedly Steve realised that Phil was on the dance committee, and probably wouldn’t appreciate Steve’s opinion of dances in general. He probably also didn’t have a date, and wanted to know there’d be someone he could hang out with during the slow dances.

“Alright,” Steve said with a sigh, hopping down off his crate. “Fine. I’ll meet you at the dance.”

“I’ll pick you up,” Phil corrected, giving Steve a lopsided grin. “You need help with the rest of those?” he asked, gesturing to the posters.

“No,” Steve replied curtly, even though he had another twenty under his arm. The suggestion that he needed help or else the posters wouldn’t get hung make him prickle. “I got this.”

“I’ll leave you to it then,” Phil replied with an easy smile, and then he walked away with a spring in his step. Steve shook his head as he watched Phil go. Phil was way too happy about a school dance for someone who didn’t even have a date.

~*~

“Steve’s going to the dance,” Natasha said when Steve joined her and Bucky for lunch the next day.

“Hey, great,” Bucky said with a wide smile. 

“What do you know about it?” Steve asked, giving Natasha a grouchy squint. 

“I’m about to know everything,” Natasha replied lightly as Bucky grabbed Steve’s arm and pulled him down onto the lawn, “because you’re going to tell us everything.”

“You got a date?” Bucky asked. “Whose heart you going to break, tiger?”

“Probably my own,” Steve replied dryly. “Being stuck in the gym with that many sweaty bodies is going to give me palpitations.” Bucky punched Steve in the arm, though he softened the blow at the last moment. Steve would rather have bruises than Bucky trying to wrap him in cotton wool, but he wasn’t going to have that fight in front of Natasha. “I’ll be hanging out with Coulson,” he said in response to Bucky’s expectant look.

Bucky grinned and nudged Steve with his elbow. “I hear he’s a good dancer.” He was president of the school Dance Club. Phil being a good dancer wasn’t exactly news.

“I hear he’s good at other things,” Natasha said with a pointed smirk. Steve rolled his eyes. 

Phil’s preferred genre of dance was swing, and he gleefully inflicted it upon the Dance Club at every opportunity. Steve often watched the Dance Club practices because they were a good opportunity for life drawing. He’d been there when Phil had introduced the Carolina Shag (not to be confused with the St Louis Shag), which seemed to be slower than most of the swing dancing Steve had seen and had fancier footwork and less happening with the arms. Of course, predictably, over the next few days plenty of graffiti turned up around the school along the lines of _“Phil Coulson is a great shag”_. Phil had seemed quietly mortified by it, but had kept his head high and soon gossip had moved on to other things. 

“Well, it’s great that you’re going,” Bucky said around a mouthful of his sandwich. “It’ll be fun.”

“Almost as much fun as not going at all,” Steve replied.

“Pfft,” Natasha said. “You’ll have a handsome boy on your arm and you won’t be taking the bus home. Even you will manage to have fun with that setup.”

Steve gave Natasha an appraising look. She was in the Dance Club with Phil, and they had a few classes together. She probably knew Phil far better than Steve did. “If you want to go to the dance with Phil, I can put in a good word for you,” he offered teasingly.

“Don’t you dare!” Bucky cut in.

“Don’t worry,” Natasha replied, pressing a kiss against Bucky’s cheek. “I’m sure that Phil is happy with the current arrangement.”

Steve wasn’t sure about that. Having no date and hanging out with a dweeb wouldn’t be anyone’s ideal dance night arrangement. But if it smoothed down Bucky’s ruffled feathers, then Steve wasn’t going to contradict her.

~*~

As the dance got closer and closer, more people commented on Steve’s commitment to attend.

“If I knew it took a thick pair of glasses and some French credits to get you out and about,” Peggy commented, “I would have left my contacts at home for a day.”

“It’s not like that,” Steve said. For one thing, Phil did have contact lenses it was just that he rarely wore them. Which was probably for the best, because they made his grey eyes look distractingly blue and Steve spent all of their conversations trying to separate out the tint of the lens from Phil’s actual eye colour. If Steve struggled to concentrate when Phil wore them, he could only imagine how bad it must be for others. 

For another thing, there had been a time when Peggy had been very successful at getting Steve out and about. They had gone out and about together for several weeks the previous summer. It was just that going out and about didn’t necessarily translate to getting anywhere, and while Peggy was a lovely person and a damn fine friend there hadn’t been a lot of physical chemistry between them. Steve had been sure that Peggy would go on to date someone with plenty of muscles and a fine physique. He’d been right, he just hadn’t picked that Peggy would link her arm with Carol Danvers. 

“Well, whatever it’s like,” Peggy had said with a glint in her eye, “I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself.”

Even Tony, Steve’s lab partner, commented on it. Of course, Tony liked to comment on everything, but Steve was of the opinion that lab would go a lot smoother if only Tony would drop his habit of riling everyone up for his own amusement.

“Got a date, huh?” Tony asked with a leer.

“I don’t see how that’s your business,” Steve replied frostily.

“So that’s a yes,” Tony said gleefully in a sing-song voice. “Phil’s a massive geek, so I guess you two have that much in common. You can bond over being annoyingly self-righteous.”

“Tony, just focus on the prac, okay?”

“Good for you though, I mean it,” Tony said, looking at Steve with serious brown eyes. “I honestly had you pegged as an asexual, but maybe all you need is a little geek-on-geek action to fix that personality of yours.”

Steve flushed with livid rage and clenched his fists, because Tony had such a gift for crossing the line when it came to any topic. Luckily, Dr Erskine noticed that Steve was about to blow and neatly cut in.

“Mister Banner, perhaps you could pair up with Mister Stark today, hm? Perhaps your gift of maintaining the peace will spread a little. And Rogers, that means that you and Barton will make a nice team, yes?” Steve took a calming breath, and then picked up his books and bag and swapped seats with Bruce. He gave Erskine a shaky smile as he tried to stamp down his temper, and Erskine gave him an ‘okay’ sign in response.

“Tony’s a jerk,” Clint said matter-of-factly when Steve climbed onto the stool beside him.

“Yeah,” Steve said with a sigh, blowing some of the tension out of his lungs.

“But yeah,” Clint continued. “You and Phil, huh?”

Steve squeezed his eyes shut, and hoped that by the time he opened them the world would have gotten over the idea that Steve was allowed to hang out with people sometimes. It was no big deal, and certainly not the specific kind of deal that people were implying.

~*~

Steve managed to track Phil down the day before the school dance. “Hey,” Phil said with a smile. “I was wondering what time—”

“Everyone’s talking about the dance,” Steve said bluntly, his expression making it very clear what he thought of people who spent all of their free time talking about a stupid dance that was just an excuse for the social elite to feel good about themselves.

“Well, yeah,” Phil replied. “It’s the last dance of the year.” Prom was held halfway through the year so as not to distract the students around exam time. The upcoming dance was the last school-endorsed social event of the year. After it lay exams, and after that came summer. Steve was already having to take anti-allergy meds.

“Bah,” Steve said bitterly, sinking back against the row of lockers. “Dance.”

Phil gave him a puzzled look and then appeared to return his attention to sorting through the books in his satchel. “If you don’t want to go,” he said at last, “we could always do something else. A movie, or I know a place that makes its own sodas and does great onion rings.” Of course Phil would know the one place in town that made their own sodas from scratch. “Or maybe you could come over my place. We could... stay in.”

Steve snorted. “No, you want to go.”

“But if you don’t want to—”

“I’m still going,” Steve said bluntly. “I’m just... I’m sick of all the gossip about it.”

“Ah,” Phil said delicately.

Steve frowned and kicked his heel against the ground glumly. “You probably don’t even what to know what people have been saying.”

Phil grabbed Steve’s arm and stared at him with a fierce expression, startling Steve. “If I didn’t like what people were saying,” Phil said firmly, “I’d put a stop to it myself. And unless you’ve changed drastically in the past week, you’re the same.” Steve looked up at Phil in surprise, feeling strange and tingly where the heat from Phil’s palm was sinking into his arm. Phil seemed to remember himself, and removed his hand, looking almost sheepish. Steve was a little sorry for the loss, though it didn’t stop him from curiously tracking the shift of expressions across Phil’s face. 

“Who cares what people say,” Phil said, the steel gone from his voice and a more familiar, gentle tone in its place. “We’ll go to the dance, have a good time, and anyone who wants to be a jerk about it can go to hell.”

Phil offered Steve a small smile, and Steve couldn’t help smiling back, though his own effort was wry where Phil’s was honest and charming. Phil was good with people, and it was sometimes easy to forget that he was also deeply stubborn. He’d once been suspended for getting into a fight with a kid from another school. His temper probably matched Steve’s in some ways, it was just that Phil had sufficient social graces that people forgave him more easily. 

“Right,” Steve finally said in agreement. “Fuck ‘em.”

“So,” Phil said, giving Steve a teasing look, “about the _dance_.” Steve groaned, and Phil laughed at him. “When do you want me to pick you up? Do you want to get dinner beforehand, or..?”

“Nah,” Steve said. “Just pick me up in time for me to arrive awkwardly and spend the night standing in a corner.” Phil looked a little disappointed, and Steve remembered that he’d seemed really excited to drag anyone along to that soda place. “Maybe we can grab something after?” he suggested, because if Phil was going to be carpooling Steve, then at least Steve could indulge him a little.

“Sure,” Phil said, smiling once more. “Great. I’ll pick you up around seven.” Phil didn’t need Steve’s address – he’d walked Steve home a few times as part of the Comic Book Club. Steve had just been happy to have someone help him carry his art books home.

“Got it,” Steve said, and then he pushed away from the locker and left Phil to prepare for his classes in peace. He felt a little better about the dance after talking about it. It was nice to know that he and Phil were on the same page.

~*~

Of course, the whole experienced turned out to be one small disaster after another.

Steve didn’t have a lot of nice clothes. Partly because he was so narrow that it was hard to find things that fit all of him at once, and partly because he tended to get smears of various art supplies on whatever he was wearing. Col. Phillips had decided that shelling out for something swish could wait until Steve either learned to keep paint off himself or had filled out a little. Nether appeared to be happening anytime soon. Anything that fit Steve in the shoulders was too short in the torso and arms. Steve was fortunate that slim-fit jeans were in fashion, because choosing between having his ankles showing or having several spare inches at his waist scrunched up by a belt was a no-win scenario.

After cobbling together an outfit that at least didn’t look entirely depressing, Steve managed to cut himself shaving. “Bleeding is your reaction to everything,” Phillips had joked, and Steve had scowled at him as he pressed a wad of tissue to the nick under his jaw. “Here, throw some aftershave on. It’ll help close up the wound.”

And perhaps that was true. But it also hurt like high hell and Phillips leaning in the doorway and enjoying the show didn’t help matters any. “Least you don’t smell like paint anymore,” he said with a grin.

“I can’t wait until I move out to college,” Steve replied through gritted teeth.

Phillips laughed and patted Steve on the back. “Love you too, kid.” At least Phillips hadn’t teased Steve about going to the dance with Phil. “This a date?” he’d asked when Steve had let him know he’d be going to the dance after all. 

“No,” Steve had replied. 

“You want it to be a date?” 

“ _No_.”

“Alright. Promise me you’ll stay out late.”

“I’ll be back by nine.”

“Spoilsport.”

It wasn’t exactly that Steve was against the idea of dating a boy, or even Phil specifically. They were certainly different, but Phil was nice to hang out with and easy to look at. It was just that Phil wasn’t interested in Steve like that, so Steve wasn’t going to waste any time indulging in hopeless fantasies. Probably Phil was in a similar situation and all of his friends had dates for the dance, so it made sense for him to pair up with the other loose end. 

Steve was looking forward to having someone to hang out with, and he was glad that it was Phil. That didn’t make it a date.

~*~

Getting collected by Phil could have gone more smoothly. Phil, being the clotheshorse that he was, turned up in a dark blue three piece suit that clearly wasn’t a rental. Steve knew that Phil did dancing competitions sometimes, and assumed that was the reason an eighteen-year-old had a three piece suit. Phil tended to look pretty spiffy anyway, but usually in a ‘shirt and jeans that clearly weren’t from Target’ kind of way. Steve, in comparison, looked like he had gotten dressed in the dark. He had to keep his shirt tucked in because the bottom of it was scruffy, and there was a fait red tinge around one of his knees from some clay that refused to wash out.

“You look nice,” Phil said when Steve opened the door.

“Shut up,” Steve grumbled at him, trying to shove Phil back towards Phil’s car, but—

“Ah, so you’re the date!” Phillips called, having spotted Phil from down the hall. Steve sagged.

“Yessir,” Phil replied, playing along with the teasing.

“We should get going,” Steve said, grabbing Phil’s arm and trying to tug him off the porch. Phil twisted his arm around, looped it, and somehow ended up with his arm linked through Steve’s. Damn dancers and their smooth moves.

“Now, I expect you to treat my little Stevie with respect,” Phillips was saying. “No funny business.”

“Of course not, sir.”

“I want him back home nice and early.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No necking in the car.”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

Phillips gave Phil an appraising look, and then glanced at Steve who glared pointedly at him. “Alright, you two kids have fun. And don’t let Steve get into any fights.”

“I make no promises, sir,” Phil replied with a cheeky smile, and then he finally allowed Steve to haul him away.

“Sorry about that,” Steve said when they were finally in the car and Phil was waiting for Steve to buckle himself in.

“Your foster dad seems pretty cool,” Phil observed, apparently pleased to have had the opportunity to help mortify Steve.

“Cooler than some,” Steve agreed. “Are we going or what?”

Phil looked down at the steering wheel as he turned the key in the ignition, an oddly shy but pleased expression on his face. “I’m glad that you’re excited, too,” he said.

Steve wasn’t exactly sure how to tell Phil that he just wanted to get out of there before it occurred to Phillips to drag them inside and force Steve through the trauma of photographs of the two of them by the fireplace. He decided to let the comment pass by.

~*~

The school hall was decorated with grey and yellow streamers, and clusters of black, yellow, and white balloons. There were black cut outs of dancing shoes taped to the wall in cute little arrangements.

“We really liked your poster,” Phil said, looking almost embarrassed by the decorations.

“Looks good,” Steve replied, and Phil relaxed.

“I was worried you’d think that it was... too much.”

It’s not necessarily what Steve would have done, but he had intentionally avoided getting roped into the dance committee so that arguments about decorations could pass him by. “It’s good,” he said simply, and Phil looked around the hall again with a bright smile on his face. 

“Do you want a drink?” Phil asked. “Or... to dance?”

“No,” Steve replied, watching a lean figure approaching them. “But I think she does.”

Maria Hill was in the Dance Club with Phil, and the Debate Club, and the Model UN, and something like three different school sports teams. She was tall and fit, and her hair was cut into a scruffy pixie cut that never seemed to grow out. She was wearing dancing shoes and a black dress with a thick white stripe around the bottom of the skirt. It took some work to convince Phil that he was allowed to dance with his friends rather than babysit Steve all night. Even as Phil was protesting, Maria was stripping Phil out of his jacket and thrusting it at Steve.

Phil and Maria were a good pair. When most teenagers danced it was easy to pick who was leading and who was making it up as they went along. Not so with Phil and Maria – they moved in sharp, bright unison. The disgusting thing was that it wasn’t even rehearsed. Dancing with one another at least once a week for the past three years, not including extra sessions they had to prep for competitions, meant that Phil and Maria could communicate silently and with more efficiency than Steve could ever hope to achieve with his words. 

Steve had accumulated a lot of sketches of Phil dancing. Watching him move was no punishment, though Steve did feel a little envy. He eventually melted back into the crowd and found a clear patch of wall to lean against. He managed to sight Bucky and Natasha, the two of them dancing in a way that would surely get them split up for being inappropriate on school grounds if a teacher spotted them. Clint was on the dance floor, not especially skilled but certainly enthusiastic. He’d dance with one girl until another caught his attention and move one with a grin and no further thought. Steve could pick the people who were used to that side of Clint, and the occasional person who felt spurned by his wandering attention.

Tony Stark slid into place beside Steve. “Where’s your date?” he asked.

“Dancing with yours,” Steve replied. 

Tony followed Steve’s gaze, and saw Phil twirling Pepper in neat circles, talking to her all the while. From the shape of his mouth, he was coaching Pepper through the moves. From the brightness of Pepper’s smile, she was thoroughly enjoying herself. Tony scowled and stalked across the floor to go and cut in. Pepper gave Phil a cheerful wave over Tony’s shoulder, and Phil gave her a little finger wave in response. Steve’s chest tightened. As if Phil wasn’t genuinely a great person, he was also disgustingly cute sometimes for someone who was legally an adult. 

Steve watched as Phil made his way over to him, getting stopped occasionally by his friends though Phil refused to be dragged into conversation. Phil was a little sweaty up close, but he still smelled like nice cologne and he didn’t seem at all out of breath. Just watching Phil dance sometimes made Steve reach for his inhaler.

“Having fun?” Steve asked.

“Yeah,” Phil replied, taking Tony’s patch of wall beside Steve, though he was a little closer than Tony had been and Steve could feel the heat radiating off Phil. “You should come dance.”

“I’m not much of a dancer,” Steve replied. “As in, I don’t dance at all.”

Steve waited for a response along the lines of _‘But everyone can dance!’_ , but Phil just nodded. “I’d be happy to show you some steps,” he said at last. “If you ever want to. But if you don’t...”

“Thanks,” Steve replied. “It’s nice just to have someone who isn’t trying to drag me onto the dance floor.” 

Phil smiled at Steve, and then looked away. “Can I get you a drink?” he offered again, as though they really were on a date and Phil was doing his damndest to be a gentleman. Steve had his arms crossed and Phil’s jacket draped over them, but he could feel the side of Phil’s palm down next to his thigh. Phil shifted a little, and one of his fingers pressed lightly against Steve’s leg. Across the room, Steve saw Peggy wrap her arms around Carol’s neck and then their foreheads gently pressed together. Phil’s bicep was pressed against Steve’s shoulder, and Steve could feel Phil breathing beside him.

Suddenly, Steve’s chest felt tight. “Air,” he said.

Phil looked startled. “What?”

“I need air,” Steve repeated. Phil acted quickly, grabbing Steve’s wrist and tugging him through the crowd. People parted for Phil in a way they never had for Steve, and soon Steve was in the quiet night air outside the school hall, struggling to juggle Phil’s jacket while he frantically searched his own pockets for his inhaler. Eventually Phil managed to extract his jacket from the tangle of Steve’s arms, and Steve managed to take a desperate, gasping suck of his asthma medicaton. 

They stood silently in the night air, Phil close by but not crowding and Steve hunched over shakily with his hands pressed against his thighs, his inhaler held tightly in one hand. It was embarrassing. Steve had probably had asthma attacks in front of every person in the school, but it didn’t stop being embarrassing. Steve had been doing such a good job of playing it cool in front of Phil, and then he had to go and get all red-faced and shivery and forget how to breathe a little. Smooth.

“Are you okay?” Phil asked when Steve’s breathing was almost normal. Steve looked up at him, saw the quiet concern on Phil’s face.

“This is a date,” Steve blurted out.

Phil gave him a bemused look. “Yes,” he said patiently. “That’s why I asked you to be my date.” Then Phil’s expression changed, confusion slipping away to be replaced by disappointed realisation. “Unless you don’t want it to be a date?”

“No!” Steve exclaimed as he straightened up. “Or yes. I don’t know.” He ran a hand through his hair, and then had to pause and try to return some order to the mess he’d just made of it. “I didn’t know it was a date,” he admitted.

“I’m sorry?” Phil said, sounding unsure as to whether he was sorry or not. Steve could understand Phil’s confusion. Looking back over the various conversations of the past two weeks, Steve felt like an idiot for not connecting the dots sooner.

“No, it’s okay,” he said firmly. “Date is fine. Date with you is fine. I just didn’t... I wasn’t expecting anyone to ask me out.”

“Why not?” Phil asked, looking puzzled.

Steve gestured to all five-foot-nothing of his weedy frame. “Because I’m me,” he said flatly.

Phil’s expression shifted, and he looked like he was trying to fight back a smile. “Why would I ask you out if I didn’t want to go out with you?” he asked.

Steve honestly didn’t have a good answer for that. “Ah,” he said at last. “I see all that Debate Club has paid off.”

Phil smiled and reached for Steve’s hand, pausing before their fingers touched. Steve closed the distance and even went as far as to entwine his fingers with Phil’s. “I’m glad we had this talk,” Phil said. “Otherwise you would have been very confused when I tried to kiss you at the end of the dance.”

Steve tried to keep the surprise from showing on his face. The idea of anyone wanting to kiss him, let alone Phil... Phil who had people constantly tapping him on the shoulder and asking for dances, Phil who had restrained strength and a quick mind and a kind disposition. More importantly, Phil who had eyes that left Steve distracted and an electricity to his touch that left Steve thrumming. Phil, who Steve honestly liked and certainly found attractive, wanted to kiss him.

“I might still be surprised,” Steve said honestly.

“Oh,” Phil said, looking deflated.

“You might have to ease me into the idea,” Steve continued. “In fact,” he took a small step closer and placed his hand on Phil’s flat stomach, slid it over the fine material of Phil’s vest and gripped the warmth of Phil’s side, “maybe you should start kissing me now. Just so I’m fully prepared for it at the end of the night.”

Phil dipped his head down, brushed the tip of his nose against Steve’s. “You make a good argument,” he murmured. Being so close, hearing Phil’s voice lowered like that, a private moment for just the two of them, made Steve’s stomach flip.

“I watch you while you talk,” Steve blurted out. “I mean, I was present when you were debating. A few times.”

“I know,” Phil murmured. “I saw you.”

“And I was there at Dance Club.”

“You were sketching me,” Phil commented, his lips brushing against Steve’s cheek like each word was a little kiss. The way he said it made Steve shiver, as though it were a thrilling secret between them rather than simple figure drawing practice. Maybe it was, since Steve never seemed to get around to sketching anyone else.

“And Comic Book Club,” Steve continued. “Mainly because you asked.”

“I asked because I wanted the excuse to walk you home,” Phil replied, and with each word his mouth shifted slightly lower until his lips were brushing the corner of Steve’s mouth.

“Oh,” Steve said faintly, and then Phil kissed him.

~*~

Phil did not drop Steve home until well after nine. Even Phillips’ smirk couldn’t put a damper on Steve’s good mood. Steve had asked Phil to take him out for a soda the following day, and they had both agreed in advance that the outing would most definitely be a second date. 


End file.
